“The despair you were unable to conceal at the
accident to one of the riders.”

He waited for her to answer, but she was silent, looking
straight before her.

“I have already begged you so to conduct yourself
in society that even malicious tongues can find nothing
to say against you. There was a time when I spoke
of your inward attitude, but I am not speaking of
that now. Now I speak only of your external
attitude. You have behaved improperly, and I
would wish it not to occur again.”

She did not hear half of what he was saying; she felt
panic-stricken before him, and was thinking whether
it was true that Vronsky was not killed. Was
it of him they were speaking when they said the rider
was unhurt, but the horse had broken its back?
She merely smiled with a pretense of irony when he
finished, and made no reply, because she had not heard
what he said. Alexey Alexandrovitch had begun
to speak boldly, but as he realized plainly what he
was speaking of, the dismay she was feeling infected
him too. He saw the smile, and a strange misapprehension
came over him.

“She is smiling at my suspicions. Yes,
she will tell me directly what she told me before;
that there is no foundation for my suspicions, that
it’s absurd.”

At that moment, when the revelation of everything
was hanging over him, there was nothing he expected
so much as that she would answer mockingly as before
that his suspicions were absurd and utterly groundless.
So terrible to him was what he knew that now he was
ready to believe anything. But the expression
of her face, scared and gloomy, did not now promise
even deception.

“Possibly I was mistaken,” said he.
“If so, I beg your pardon.”

“No, you were not mistaken,” she said
deliberately, looking desperately into his cold face.
“You were not mistaken. I was, and I
could not help being in despair. I hear you,
but I am thinking of him. I love him, I am his
mistress; I can’t bear you; I’m afraid
of you, and I hate you.... You can do what you
like to me.”

And dropping back into the corner of the carriage,
she broke into sobs, hiding her face in her hands.
Alexey Alexandrovitch did not stir, and kept looking
straight before him. But his whole face suddenly
bore the solemn rigidity of the dead, and his expression
did not change during the whole time of the drive
home. On reaching the house he turned his head
to her, still with the same expression.

“Very well! But I expect a strict observance
of the external forms of propriety till such time”—­his
voice shook—­“as I may take measures
to secure my honor and communicate them to you.”

He got out first and helped her to get out.
Before the servants he pressed her hand, took his
seat in the carriage, and drove back to Petersburg.
Immediately afterwards a footman came from Princess
Betsy and brought Anna a note.